


i fall, you fall

by codename



Series: venus trines pluto [1]
Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Demigods, Established Relationship, F/F, Post-Tartarus (Percy Jackson)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28116930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codename/pseuds/codename
Summary: Mina is busy with popsicle sticks and Nayeon wants to knock them all over.
Relationships: Im Nayeon/Myoui Mina
Series: venus trines pluto [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2059839
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	i fall, you fall

Nayeon watches the tide roll out, then in, undulating like a constant that will never break until she does.

She feels it twice, stronger in herself.

Outside it’s slow, all nature’s will; inside it bursts like a broken dam, like a steep river bed that only gets quicker and quicker. Into something uncontrollable.

Beside her, Jihyo is doing a good job of hacking at something, as she always does. She handles a sword with such proficiency; from navel to nape, like a monster or a person, coaxing her to swing.

Sand pools out from the centre like a cracked hourglass, and she skewers the silver through.

Jihyo wears a lopsided smile. “Pretty good, right?” 

Nayeon’s eyes tear off her damp sneakers.

“They’d cry before they’d take a shot at you,” she says, wincing when the sand reaches the willows lining the bank. And now, the water is colder, more vulnerable, creeps from the soles of her feet, up to the centre of her chest. “Out of fear.”

“I don’t want to scare people around me,” she stretches her arms behind her head, contemplating, almost yawning. “I want to protect them,” is all Jihyo can say in return.

Nayeon knows this well. Jihyo is second to one in bravery.

“But things that hurt the people around me,” she pauses, piercing the air with her fist. A perfect lunge. Perfect force. “They can cry.”

They can. And Nayeon hopes they did. Or that they will, if they’re still alive. Nayeon wishes anything that’s hurt her before would cry and never stop.

Nayeon finds herself veered into a vision of blue, forcibly; dull, grey eyes, blinking and blinking.

It blinks but Nayeon can’t find a face—can’t search for it.

There’s a hurricane in those eyes.

It’s dying down, but still there.

For what seems like a second, when she kneels down to touch the water, to test the temperature, she pulls back from the darkness of it, if only to remind herself, slowly, _she is not an ocean._

“Why does Mina cry?” Nayeon does not say. She keeps it in her thoughts. Lets it drown under fast waters; the shallow, rocky underwater that is nothing but cold.

She’s glad Jihyo loves to talk. It fills the silence, and Nayeon doesn’t have to listen, only offers her presence. 

“Are you hungry?” Jihyo asks last. All other questions merge with the sky. Empty and unanswered. “Let’s go back to the dining pavilion.”

Nayeon nods. She wonders what food it is this time. It always tastes better when it’s scalding.

_Does it hurt?_

Nayeon leaves camp more often. Comes back on the weekend, or not for a whole week.

It hasn’t been long since they fell. All those years together unwinded in a matter of days.

She props her elbow up against the car window, watching the shapes rise and fall, searching for the water.

“Where do you want to go?” her mother tries. She wants Nayeon to say something. She wants Nayeon to enjoy herself before she goes back.

There is no water where she is. Only buildings of grey.

“The library,” Nayeon replies, voice thin over a speed-bump, that she feels compelled to say it again. Just to confirm it. Just so she won't change her mind. “Let’s go to the library.”

“I thought you’d stay with your father.” The daughter of Aphrodite leans precariously back in her chair, one foot slipper-less atop a glass table. “You’re in camp for December?”

Sana tips her hand mirror towards her, and she holds onto it, it’s the gift she got from Momo after all and she’s rather fond of it, but Mina simply takes a cursory glance. Though Mina buffers before she decides one look is enough, hopes it is as passing as the quirk in the girl’s eyebrow.

“I am,” Sana knows the answer already, but she’ll indulge her. Just this once. “Why—would you miss me?”

Sana mutters, “of course I would,” left leg now over the right in one fidgety motion. She’s itching for something to say.

“So?”

Squally wind beats through the beach. There’s no one on the shore.

Mina winces when Sana snaps her mirror shut, stiffens when she suddenly stands and her thumb rubs away at her cheek. She’s stood like a statue, ensconced in folded hands, as if she were being chiselled away.

“It was—” Mina winces. There’s a snag in her rug. “Ares kids get a little rough.”

“Right,” says Sana. She’s unconvinced. It’s in her voice, her face, everything. “And which Ares kid would you _ever_ let hit you?”

There’s ire in the crease of her eyes. It’s small, a little indifferent. But it is as present as a nettle sting—sharp and stubborn, and Mina would, if she could, click her tongue and chide softly that she was being too serious.

Sana knew her like family. A small, vindictive part of Mina is glad, thinks, _good_. That she’s not hurting by herself, not caring about all of this on her own.

“In my defence, I didn’t ask,” Sana reasons.

The purple on Mina’s skin stains her like ink.

“She doesn’t mean to,” is the reply. It’s breathy and shaky, but Mina doesn’t let it take hold.

And no, Sana wouldn’t deny it. Tartarus was stubborn. She mulls over her words carefully before responding, eyes the sea behind her with a sidelong glance.

“And what does Nayeon think?”

Mina leans against the balcony’s balustrade. It’s not pleasant—a beach house nearing winter. Mina wonders why she accepted Sana’s invitation in the first place. Maybe she wanted a little getaway, a little distraction.

She’s got a knack for coaxing out things like this, not through charmspeak, though you’d feel no difference. Sana wouldn’t use it on someone if they didn’t like it.

But Mina isn’t like Sana.

Not as considerate, not as understanding. She would use it whenever she could, grant herself the safety and feeling of comfort she selfishly wants.

She wants the words to come out like it’s nothing, for Sana to think she’s okay, even if she doesn’t believe it.

Mina’s eyes move from skin to stone, to breaking waves.

“That—” Something in her breaks. Splits the sentence apart for a different meaning. It’s not on purpose. In fact, Mina feels like she’s suffocating, trying to get the words out. “I’m scared of her.”

Something else burns inside of Mina when she says it. It’s not pleasant either.

Because she isn’t scared, doesn’t want to be, and perhaps it’s the last thing she ever wants to end up being.

She wishes the view in front of her was brimming with people, that they’d offer a loose connection, that someone out there might be scared of the same thing.

But it is only the most gentle hue of gold, muted against the sea, and the sea is not scared of the same things.

The sea embraces her fear, flows through her veins, bitterly makes her _live._

Sana’s dress is long. Her hair has one plait on the left side of her face. _That’s Sana_ , Mina thinks. Undeniably her. She is so confident, so herself, that Mina wants to swat the jealousy away when Sana says, like the last puzzle piece, “Of it.”

“That you’re scared of _it,_ ” Sana fixes. She’s almost adamant on it. Her fist lightly falls down to the railing like a mallet in court, but it is neither demanding or accusatory. It’s hopeful. “You aren’t scared of _her._ ”

Sana remembers the old rule of the Aphrodite cabin: that to be recognised as one of the love goddess’ children, you must break someone’s heart. That rule was put aside a long time ago. Mina and Nayeon were a perfect example of why.

_It hurts._

A month seems like a lifetime.

Mina is sitting at a table, Christmas lights hovering above, when Sana asks, “Don’t you want to sit with your siblings?”

Not Nayeon, not a teasing outstretched arm, _“Poseidon’s table is right there,”_ or the quick taunt of eyes in the direction of the girl, sat all alone, inhaling her food at a messy, endearing speed. It was easy for other people to be immune and oblivious. But Mina’s wounds need time to seal and vanish. 

She doesn’t look past Sana, where her table is. Where her four half-siblings are laughing, sitting in a circle. There’s a gap left, as always, for her. She looks behind, and it’s cruel, a paragon for spite itself, when no-one is there and the lights in Cabin 3 are out.

She smiles. It’s worth a try. “I’m fine sitting with you.”

Mina doesn’t know how to fix it. She’s tired of trying.

“She isn’t angry.”

Jihyo twirls the shaft of an arrow between her fingers. “Uh, yeah,” she says it like it’s obvious, “that’s a good thing.”

The shot is lined up, left eye squinting at the target in the distance. Arm at the perfect degree. Legs apart in a commendable stance.

Nayeon shakes her head from the tree. It almost throws Jihyo off her concentration.

“A good thing?”

Breathe in, then release.

“Nothing good has happened since then.”

Bullseye.

Mina thinks sunlight is a great thing.

“You’re getting distracted, Myoui,” Momo knocks the shield up from her face with one knuckle. The armoury is almost always occupied, and Momo is almost always there. Mina spots the remnants of Sana, with the gummies atop a furnace.

The wheel grinded to a stop at Momo’s firm push.

“I like the sun,” she says simply.

Momo wipes the black on her hands onto her face, leaving a streak across her cheek. Mina’s is still there, a faint, pale purple. The dagger gleams against the light. She lines it up to the bangs of her hair, hacks it away until the strand breaks. It’s not quite ready yet.

“Is that it? You’re always looking up. Careful your eyes don’t burn.”

Just as Momo places the blade at the belt, chuckling to herself, Mina is saying, “The sun usually isn’t out this bright, not at this time of year. I wouldn’t look down and miss it. I’m glad it’s even here.”

Momo had been humming along to Mina’s utterances for the past half hour. It wasn’t that she was uninterested. But almost every conversation leads to something Momo had no expertise on; on somewhere dark, where screams latch onto you and don’t leave, and you’re not sure they ever will.

Sana once told her Mina was fragile. “So am I.”

Momo pushes it again.

Metal screeches. Sparks fly.

Embers land on Momo’s knee but she doesn’t move.

Mina doesn’t budge from the view, instead lets the heat consume her in a different way.

Time keeps her going. Other times, it slows her down.

These days, Nayeon believes in small things. A step at a time. A second at a time. Increments in her life.

> Sleep for eight hours. Heed to camp curfew. No more than cereal at breakfast. Dinner scrapped altogether. Clean the cabin by yourself. Visit mother when you can.

(Jeongyeon says she doesn’t suit self-discipline. She had plucked a camellia from the garden, told Nayeon to collect it from number 11, and to be wary of the vines and thorns on her way in. _Water won’t be much of a problem for you,_ she had said, _but make sure to keep cold winds away._

Before she had left, foot raised over the ivy that grew at the doorstep, Jeongyeon reminded her that, if it did die, she could always give her another one. If it was that easy. Water was always there, surrounding you, coursing through you. It never left. Nayeon could never tell it to go away and come back.

 _You’re lucky, Jeongyeon,_ she wanted to say. Instead, she whispered it to the clay pot, sat in the corner of her room where the moonlight reached, lonely and tall.)

The last point, scrawled messily in her imagined list, is:

> Once a day, be with Mina.

Mina doesn’t know if it gets better.

If she’ll stop cowering under her sheets. If her siblings will stop their concerned looks. If she’ll ever stop being aware of how Nayeon backs away, just one step, when they meet.

She’s not a light sleeper. But now, sleep seems a luxury. A sword at her bedside. Frantic reaches for it at every creak and footstep.

And now, Mina hates the dark. She hates everything to do with it. It’s a horrible, sickly feeling. It gathers behind her ribs, settles at the bottom of her stomach. Doesn’t leave.

Her fingers are numb. The door is right in front of her, every movement a creak in the wooden planks. The cabin is so pristine, so unbearably perfect. No-one bats an eye towards her, not like she expects them to, they walk by and laugh, go on about their day while Nayeon’s heart flips.

Mina told her to not say sorry. Apologising made it worse, like it was at all Nayeon’s fault.

Her hand is against it, but she doesn’t push further. Nayeon remembers Mina saying she prefers her alone time in the afternoon, at this specific time. Where her siblings are out for their chores and Cabin 6 is a ghost-town. Even with her tartan scarf, all swooping layers of fabric, the hair's-breadth gap between wool and browned scars is nothing. It’s cold, and she’s making herself colder by standing there and doing nothing.

Mina had knitted the scarf for her. Went to the lengths of sitting at her own table, (“Mina, you’re sitting with us?” one of her half-siblings said, eyes wide. She had responded, hollowly, that, “This is our table, after all,”) as to not ruin the surprise. 

All it takes is a little pressure. A little confidence.

It opens. Her eyes flick across the whole length of the table. Fingers glide across a fragile ad hoc mini-Olympus model. Nayeon scuffs the toe of her sneakers against the floor and watches Mina toss a popsicle stick over, narrowly missing the support of a scaled down Hades’ statue.

“Mina?”

Her hair is a mess, tied up in a ponytail to hide it. It’s when Mina wants to concentrate the most she puts it up, and she never minds how it looks. As long as it’s practical. Mina straightens herself at the voice, flinches a little when the door opens and the chill fills the room.

Then, as she sees Nayeon’s face, pale and worried, she swallows thickly, like she wasn’t expecting Nayeon to be here. After all, she spent most of her time away from camp, away from her, that it became normal.

“I’m working,” she says finally. “I didn’t want to use Yuna’s project materials for something so insignificant.” It’s silent as Nayeon observes. Mina took pride in whatever she did, so the statement stung with unfamiliarity. Then, after a few seconds, “Do you want one?”

One, two—a couple of ice-cream boxes. This was Nayeon’s forte, doing something dumb at the expense of Mina. Like eating a few hundred popsicles so Mina could build a silly model. But something is different, when Nayeon can spot the shiver in Mina’s lips and the grumble in her stomach.

“It’s okay,” Nayeon replies, and it’s not.

It’s really not, and Nayeon doesn’t understand why Mina isn’t telling her to leave, telling her to give her space. She’s noticed it this whole time. It’s been there a while now, lingering above both of them. She’s angry at clerks when she visits her mother, at taxi drivers, at the weather, at every noise that didn’t belong and every single person that wasn’t _her._

She watches Mina glue another stick, and Nayeon curls her fingers around the nearest furniture. _Snap,_ Nayeon is repeating, or someone is, inside her head, and she wants it to, desperately, for something to break or crack or blow up because she can’t take much more of this.

Maybe it was the table too, separating them.

Mina stays on her side, sometimes as stiff as a cadaver.

At the same time Nayeon opens her mouth, Mina speaks.

“I’m sorry,” she runs a hand through her hair. Sounds defeated. Presses the heels of her palms into her eyes. She doesn’t cry, though. Mina can’t bring herself to. “How—are you, with everything? How’s home?”

“Home is... I don’t know,” Nayeon sighs. Home is where her mother is, that’s true, but home is here, too. With Mina. The one she trusts her life with, the one she senses even when everything seems to separate them. Nayeon wonders if Mina knows it too, that she’ll be there. Like Charleston Harbour, like now, like Tartarus.

_Always._

Nayeon closes the door behind her.

Mina continues into the night.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> one of many percabeth minayeon thoughts. also extremely self-indulgent
> 
> [hi](https://twitter.com/vocalistmina)


End file.
